


TMA Daemon AU Oneshots

by feel_like_plastic_waste



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23520793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feel_like_plastic_waste/pseuds/feel_like_plastic_waste
Summary: A collection of TMA Daemon AU snippets!
Comments: 15
Kudos: 107





	1. two guests for mr spider

Jonathan Sims was eight years old when his daemon settled. 

Of course, he takes great humor in it now. Jokes about how "curiosity  _ almost _ killed the cat", but back then it was a truly horrific thing. Children, especially those his age, were not meant to settle. His grandmother had nearly lost custody of him- no one was able to see what else would have made him settle so early.

Of course, no one told little Jonathan that. They praised him instead, pretending to be amazed by how mature he was at his age, how impressive it was. 

Even back then, Jon hadn't believed them. He knew why Cecily settled so early. Cecily herself knew why. It was simply that no one believed them.

It had all started with that book. Jon didn't really want to read it at first, it looked like it was for babies! Cecily hadn't liked it at all. 

"It looks weird." She complained, standing on the couch. She looked like a miniature version of his grandmother's pomeranian daemon, her fluffy little body shivering when he picked it up. 

"Don't read it." She insisted. 

"It's just a book." Jon replied. Then he began to read. 

When he came back to himself, he was on the ground and Cecily was whining pitifully. She was a larger dog now, he couldn't recognize what exactly. Above him, his tormentor was mocking him, holding A Guest For Mr.Spider- his book- out of reach. 

"What's this? Little genius is reading a kiddies' book?" 

His tormentor's daemon spread their wingspan, beating it with what sounded like a laughter like croak.

"Give it back!" Jon was on his feet on a flash, jumping with arms outstretched to retrieve his possession. Cecily didn't move from where she was, her eyes full of fear as their tormentor pushed the small child down again.

"Whatever, this book is freaky anyway." The bully's daemon taunted, feathers ruffling. 

Then, Jon's tormentor started reading the book. 

As he walked away, Cecily grabbed Jon's shirt between her teeth. "Don't go, don't go, don't follow him let's go home I want to go home-" 

Despite her pleas, Jon followed. Cecily trailed after him, small and sacred in the shape of a velvet red squirrel. 

They both watched, Jon gripping his daemon tight to his chest, as their bully and his now panicked daemon placed the book on the door, knocking. 

Then, arms lined with grey fur gripped the older boy's body and pulled him in the house, his daemon crying out. 

Jon didn't stick around then, terror overriding his mind as he ran back home, still gripping Cecily tight to his chest.

His grandmother was in a panic. The moment he stepped through the door, she was upon him, demanding to know where he had been. All he could manage to do was rush into her arms, seeking comfort as he sobbed with fear. 

When they woke up the next morning, Cecily was a cat. Long-legged and beautiful, with silky long grey fur and two, large eyes that didn't match. One was green, the other a soft yellow. She never changed again. 

\----

Years later, Jon applied to The Magnus institute to work as a researcher. He shook hands with his new boss, Elias Bouchard and frowned when he noticed that the man didn't seem to have a daemon nearby.

"I don't mean to pry, Mr. Bouchard, but-"

"Please, call me Elias." The older man chuckled. "Mr. Bouchard is much too formal for my taste. As for my daemon, she's right here… though, I warn you, she may… make you uncomfortable."

When the large, black furred spider scurried her way in Jon's line of sight, it took Jon all of his self control not to leap out of his chair. His daemon, however, betrayed him, sinking her claws in Jon's lap and her fur rising in fear. 

Elias only laughed.


	2. Along Came a Spider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains vague mentions of drugs and suicide. Both of those things are only mentioned once and as vaguely as possible, but I decided that a warning was still important to anyone who is sensitive to this kind of thing. Be safe. 

Elias Bouchard's daemon was a spider. A little cellar spider, nothing too impressive. Elias neither liked nor disliked the form his daemon settled as- in fact, he quite liked the fact that she could be anywhere on him at all times, hidden in his clothes or nestled somewhere in his hair. Sure, he came close to accidentally crushing her once or twice, but otherwise it was a convenient form. 

On the other hand, Elias’s daemon didn’t really like her settled form. “It’s too small.” She would say. “I wanted to be something big, something scary.” 

“You are scary. Well, to arachnophobes at least.” He would reply, trying to play it off as a joke. She never laughed. 

_Monkey’s fucking paw I guess_ Elias would later tell himself, trapped somewhere in his own mind, alone. 

Back then though, neither of them knew. Ignorance is bliss as some would say. Michael surely lived by that. Blissfully ignorant, blissfully trusting of the cranky old archivist who would drag him across the earth seemingly on a whim. Michael with his colourful hummingbird of a daemon who just suddenly vanished one day, that cranky old archivist saying nothing of his disappearance. 

Perhaps she thought no one would notice. 

_I noticed_ Elias would think later as he leaned against the brick walls of a dark alleyway with a joint in his mouth, silently grieving the loss of his friend.

Elias had wanted to quit, then. His daemon protested but he couldn’t stand the thought of staying. Not after Delano ( _god, he could still remember the ragged screaming and the howl of pure agony coming from his daemon and he could still see the blood everywhere and oh god Eric what did you_ _do-_ ) and certainly not after Michael. 

He tried writing a resignation letter. It took him a week. His computer kept crashing, Word kept losing his files. When he finally managed to successfully print out his letter… He found that he couldn’t. His daemon mocked him, crueller than she had ever been before. It was so unlike her, to call him a coward, to torment him with memories of Eric or Michael. Reminding him that _he_ wasn’t chosen as an archival assistant, that he had been powerless to even object to what had happened to his only friends. 

He thought about shutting her up for good. Crushing her small little frail form would be easy enough. He would just have to slam his fist down and it would be all over. 

That idea left him as quickly as the idea of giving in his resignation letter. His daemon grew quieter over the days as he started to feel more desperate. He would swear he had the letter with him, then get to work and realize he had left it at home. 

He’d had to reprint it seven different times, having lost the previous ones or spilled something on them that turned them completely incomprehensible. The one he’s managed to finally get to James Wright’s office is covered in cobweb- a last ditch effort on his daemon’s part to stop him from quitting. 

She’s sitting on Elias’s shoulder when he enters the office. She hasn’t spoken to him for a month now. He doesn’t care. He’s doing this.

James Wright smiles at him when he comes in, motions for him to come sit as his own daemon watches with narrowed eyes. James Wright’s daemon is an ugly thing, a ragged looking persian cat with a nose that looks far too pushed back into its skull and a nasty scar that takes up half of its face. 

His hands tremble and he drops the resignation letter. He can’t do it. He doesn’t know why. James Wright only laughs. 

“Now now Elias, why would you want to quit? I still have use for you. In fact, I need you for something right away.” He sounds dangerous. Elias is afraid. His daemon is not. 

He isn’t sure what happened, not exactly. He remembered a sharp, agonizing pain in his skull. He hears- or rather feels his daemon scream out in what sounds like joy until he can no longer feel her at all. Then he is somewhere else. 

He floats in this strange nothingness for a long time before he manages to push at whatever is holding him back, manages to feel again. He feels his body move without his consent, talk with his mouth and his voice without his saying. Worst of all, he starts feeling hi daemon again only she is not his anymore. Her mind is warped and distant and cold. She is still there, yet there is something else mingled inside her- inside him. 

Elias Bouchard’s daemon used to be a spider. A little cellar spider, nothing too impressive. 

Jonah Magnus’s daemon was a spider. A large, black-furred goliath birdeater. She is big and she is _terrifying_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk to me about this au on my daemon tumblr blog @blog-about-daemons


	3. The Wanderer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look into Helen Richardson and her daemon as they are trapped in strange hallways...

"Keep going Helen." Her daemon's voice was soft despite the evident fear that laced it. Their tentacles wrapped around her shaking hand as she held them to her chest. 

Who knows how long they'd been trapped in these impossible corridors, following a path with no end. Every mirror they passed was as horrifying and unsettling as any previous ones they had passed. 

Or maybe they had passed the same mirror over and over again. Except for the shifting of the colours, nothing in these hallways seemed to indicate any sort of progress or change. 

It was maddening. Then again, Helen had a feeling that that was the point. 

"At least that Archivist believed us…" Agatha said after a few more minutes of walking, their small tentacles still gripping Helen's hand for comfort. "As crazy as it sounds… maybe he'll be able to help us." 

"That does sound pretty crazy." Helen chuckled bitterly. 

"Crazier than being trapped in an internal hallway?" 

Helen didn't answer. She didn't know! She was tired. She already felt weakened by how long she had been walking. Resting was out of the question though; she knew how that usually ended. Salad Fingers would just appear out of nowhere again until she was running and that horrible laugh would echo through the halls, always sounding so close even though it came from so far away… 

"Don't think about it." Agatha reminded her, squeezing her hand with their tentacles. "Just… let's focus on getting out of here." 

"Yes…" 

So Helen and her daemon walked. For days? Maybe weeks? She was pretty sure it couldn't have been a year, so there was that at least. It didn't matter anymore though. They did end up finding a way out, in a way. 

Agatha rarely said or even made much noise. Becoming the Distortion had torn so much of Helen out of them, sometimes she could dismiss them as an accessory. 

Yet when they did, it was to laugh. To laugh and laugh and laugh with her own echoing against it, the static reverbs bouncing off the walls of their new home, of their new being.

Sometimes she swore their laughs sounded more like sobbing. She wasn't sure if her own sounded any different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone wondering, Helen's daemon is a blue-ringed octopus!


	4. jonah magnus can have little a gay feelings... as a treat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i caught the lonelyeyes brainrot and it is ENTIRELY Voca, Kiwi and Blank's faults.

Jonah Magnus had never seen a Lukas' daemon. He knew that they had one, of course. They were all born human, after all. Of course, he has met people that were born amongst the Lukas family, but as long as they had their daemon by their side, they could never truly be a Lukas. 

On the other hand, Jonah Magnus had had multiple daemons across his extensive lifetime- it was hard for him to remember what his soul had initially settled as. Not that it mattered anymore. A daemon was nothing but a practicality anymore, something he used to blend in, to intimidate... James Wright's daemon had been a persian cat- all that Jonah's daemon did was make it even uglier than it already was. Elias Bouchard's daemon had been a cellar spider- now she was a terrifying goliath birdeater spider, larger than even Peter Lukas' hands. 

Well actually, now that Jonah's thoughts shifted to Peter, he felt the need to correct his previous statement. He had seen the daemon of a Lukas, though only once and it had been by pure, dumb luck. 

It had been on the Tundra, he recalled. A business trip.. of sorts. He'd been standing on the railing, ignoring the small crew behind him as they went on their usual business- in turn, they ignored the strange man on the ship who had stormed out of their captain's quarters, a large spider lazily trailing behind him. 

It hadn't even been a serious argument. Jonah could barely remember it now, something about late fundings. Who even knew? Yet Jonah had been there, on the railings of the ship as far from the captain's quarters as he could be that he saw it… or rather heard it. 

The gentle flapping of wings above him and a high pitched sound not unlike one of a whistle filled the air around him. 

"Look." His daemon's voice cut through his mind, sharp and vicious despite it's rough misuse. He couldn't see where she wanted him to look, but he Knew and so he looked up. 

He also didn't see her through the thick fog- then again, she was hard to miss. Black and white feathers that covered a large avian body. She wasn't looking at him, he knew that… yet he still felt like he was getting kept an eye on. 

He knew Peter was approaching him before he saw him, yet he deigned not look at him. "I didn't know that those who served the Lonely still had daemons." He instead commented idly, still looking at the large bird flying above. A laysan albatross, the Beholding told him. 

"It's… inconvenient, but we still need to seem a bit human." Peter replied, leaning against the railing, looking at Jonah's borrowed face with a raised brow. "Does it bother you?" 

Jonah snorts, looking back down at the water ( _ he was NOT going to look at him _ ). "I don't see why her presence would bother me any more than yours does already." 

Peter laughed, then waved his hand dismissively. Above, the albatross daemon silently slipped back into the fog as if she had never been there in the first place. 

"What's her name?" Jonah found himself asking impulsively. He wouldn't have, really, if the Beholding had told him. Yet, when he had tried to know, he had only found… well, nothing. 

Peter hummed, eyes locked on the empty spot where his daemon had been. "Good question, I think it was Icarus? No… No maybe Jude?" He shifted then, uncomfortable. "I'm not sure, and I don't care to know." 

"Well, fine, keep your secrets." 

"What about you? What's  _ her _ name?"

"Can't say, I didn't take the time to ask Elias Bouchard what it was before… well." 

Peter hums and that's that. It wasn't a big event, now that Jonah thinks about it. It wasn't important, not  _ really _ . 

Yet he finds himself thinking about that moment a lot, imagining how lucky he would be to see that daemon again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's using vague entity reasons to not give characters' daemons names. Yoopie.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me about this au on my daemon tumblr blog @blog-about-daemons


End file.
